Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collaborative on the Environment (SLICE)

Images wavered in the sunlit trim of appliances, something always moving, a brightness flying, so much to know in the world. —Don Delillo, Libra

A few cartoons lead to cataclysmic events in Europe. A man’s statement that he “can’t breathe” ricochets across North America. A photograph printed in a newspaper moves a solitary reader. A snapshot posted on the Internet leads to dreams of fanciful places. Memories of a past year haunt us like ghosts. What each of these occurrences has in common is that they all entail the force of images in our lives, whether these images are visual, acoustic, or tactile in nature; made by hand or machine; circulated by word of mouth; or simply imagined. In this seminar, we will consider the role that images play in the lives of people in various settings throughout the world. In delving into terrains at once actual and virtual, we will develop an understanding of how people throughout the world create, use, circulate, and perceive images—and how such efforts tie into ideas and practices of sensory perception, time, memory, affect, imagination, sociality, history, politics, and personal and collective imaginings. Through these engagements, we will reflect on the fundamental human need for images, the complicated politics and ethics of images, aesthetic and cultural sensibilities, dynamics of time and memory, the intricate play between the actual and the imagined, and the circulation of digital images in an age of globalization and social media. We will also consider the spectral, haunting qualities of many imaginal moments in life. Readings are to include a number of writings in anthropology, art history, philosophy, psychology, cultural studies, and critical theory. Images are to be drawn from photographs, films and videos, paintings, sculptures, drawings, street art and graffiti, religion, rituals, tattoos, inscriptions, novels, poems, road signs, advertisements, dreams, fantasies, and any number of fabulations in the worlds in which we live and imagine. The seminar will be held during two class sessions each week during the fall and spring terms. Along with that, students will meet individually with the instructor every other week through the course of each semester to discuss their ongoing academic and creative work. In the fall semester, we will all also meet every other week in an informal group setting to watch films together, discuss student research and writing projects, and engage creatively with images and imaginal thought.

How does a chronic illness affect a person’s orientation to the everyday? What are the social and political forces that underpin life in a homeless shelter? What is the experiential world of a blind person, a musician, a refugee, or a child at play? In an effort to answer these and like-minded questions, anthropologists have become increasingly interested in developing phenomenological accounts of particular lived realities in order to understand—and convey to others—the nuances and underpinnings of such realities in terms that more general social or symbolic analyses cannot achieve. In this context, phenomenology offers an analytic method that works to understand and describe in words phenomena as they appear to the consciousnesses of certain peoples. The phenomena most often in question for anthropologists include the workings of time, perception, selfhood, language, bodies, suffering, and morality as they take form in particular lives within the context of any number of social, linguistic, and political forces. In this course, we will explore phenomenological approaches in anthropology by reading and discussing some of the most significant efforts along these lines. Each student will also try their hand at developing a phenomenological account of a specific social or subjective reality through a combination of ethnographic research, participant observation, and ethnographic writing.

How many different species of fungi can live in tiny plant seeds? How many species of bacteria can live in a drop of river water? You may be surprised to learn that that number is actually quite large. The amount of biodiversity in the microbial world is vast but, until recently, peering into this “black box” has been extremely difficult. With the advent of high-throughput DNA sequencing methods, it is now far easier to characterize this cryptic diversity. In this course, students will participate in two ongoing research projects. The first explores the hidden fungal diversity in plant seeds and determines if and how those fungal communities shift in response to landscape fragmentation. The second involves screening bacterial communities in water samples from local rivers for potential human pathogens. Students will learn about current methods to characterize microbial communities, including both high-throughput DNA sequencing and bioinformatics techniques. The course will involve extensive data analyses, including processing of amplicon sequencing data to identify organisms, as well as statistical analyses to explore how the structure of microbial communities changes in response to environmental factors. Students who wish to enroll in this course should have previous laboratory experience in biology and a willingness to learn command-line programming.

This yearlong course, based on the professor’s new book—Legal and Political Foundations of Capitalism: The End of Laissez Faire?—introduces students to the emerging Law and Political Economy tradition in economics. The course will deal with four interrelated questions: (1) What does economic regulation mean? (2) What is the relationship between institutions, legal ones in particular, and the economy? (3) How does one theoretically analyze the nature of property rights, money, corporations, and power? (4) How does rethinking the relationship between law and the economy challenge conventional ideas about the nature of economic regulation? The course will seek to understand the nature of power and its relationship to institutions, especially legal ones, by considering property rights and money, the business corporation, constitutional political economy, the links between “free markets” and authoritarianism, colonialism and race, and inequality as it intersects across class, race, and gender lines. We will deal with these questions by focusing on the insights of the Original Institutional Economics and American Legal Realists and their relationship to the classical political economy tradition (especially Adam Smith and Karl Marx). The Law and Political Economy framework will be contrasted with the insights of New Institutional Economics, with the latter’s basis in neoclassical economics. Core questions that will be addressed include: What is laissez faire, and does legal-economic history show any proof of its existence? What is assumed when dueling perspectives advocate “more” or “less” government intervention; and are these, in fact, false binaries that distract from core questions of public policy and key challenges such as climate instability, growing inequality, and threats to democracy? No prior background in economics is required.

What assumptions, methodologies, values, vision, and theoretical foundations do microeconomists incorporate and rely upon for analyzing economic behavior at the individual level? What insights, knowledge, inferences, and/or conclusions can be gleaned through examining characteristics of individual firms, agents, households, and markets in order to understand capitalist society? How do our theories of individual and business behavior inform our interpretation of distributional outcomes? Among other topics, this yearlong seminar in microeconomics will offer an inquiry into economic decision-making vis-à-vis: theories of demand and supply, the individual (agents), households, consumption (consumer choice); theories of production and costs; theories of the firm (business enterprise, corporations); theories of markets and competition; prices and pricing theory; and public policy. This course will provide a rigorous analysis of theory and policy in the neoclassical and broad critical political economy traditions. A central theoretical issue will be an engagement of the “governments versus markets” dichotomy, which is at the heart of neoclassical economics. This important theme will be addressed by investigating the rival treatments of institutions in neoclassical economics (New Institutional Economics) and the Law and Political Economy tradition. Among other topics, we will analyze how these different approaches to institutions and the economy study cost-benefit analysis, Pareto optimality, business competition, and the Coase Theorem. The spring semester will incorporate the study of business history.

Environmental injustice is both an outcome and a process. As an outcome, environmental injustice is the unequal distribution of environmental burdens (or benefits) in a society. As a process, environmental injustice is the history and institutions that project political, economic, and social inequalities into the environmental sphere. In this course, we will discuss the broad environmental justice literature and connect it with our immediate community: Yonkers, NY. We will first measure the disproportionate environmental burdens in the city’s low-income and minority neighborhoods. Then, we will utilize economics to examine the causal mechanisms of environmental injustice. We will focus on the evolution of the housing market, the changing demographics of Yonkers, the location choice of major pollution sources, political representation and power, exclusionary and expulsive zoning policies, etc. We will draw knowledge from multiple fields—economics, politics, sociology, geography, etc. We will examine the issue using multiple methodologies and assess different policy options for improving environmental and climate justice in Yonkers. We will also examine the policy implications of each environmental injustice issue. For each topic/issue, we will have in-depth discussions based on the readings, followed by in-class collaborative research activities that produce qualitative and quantitative evidence of environmental injustice in Yonkers. To visualize environmental injustice, we will use a geographic information system (GIS) to make maps. You will then be asked to write about the issue in an assignment and discuss potential policy recommendations.

Climate change will be the defining issue of the coming decades. It threatens the ecosystems and infrastructure that human society relies upon and will impact most aspects of the global economy, policymaking, and day-to-day life. This First-Year Studies course will provide the basic foundation in earth systems and climate science needed for students who are interested in careers in environmental science, policy, law, or advocacy. It will also be valuable for students who are concerned about how climate change will impact their communities and their careers in other fields. In the early fall, students will participate in Climate Week New York City events, where they will learn about local climate-change issues along with international government and private-sector efforts to address climate change. During the rest of the fall semester, we will draw on fundamental concepts of physics, chemistry, biology, and earth science to learn about human-caused global warming and its context in the more than four billion-year history of our planet. For their first conference project, students will learn about climate-change indicators and will present their research on an indicator of their choice at the college poster symposium. In the spring, we’ll build upon this foundation to investigate the linkages among global climate, natural ecosystems, and human society. We will explore topics such as biodiversity, food and agriculture, adapting to climate-change impacts, and the energy-systems transition needed to prevent catastrophic global warming. We will also visit the Center for the Urban River at Beczak (CURB) to learn about climate change and the Hudson River Estuary. For their spring conference project, students will learn to conduct a scientific literature review and will write a research paper on the climate-change process or on an issue in which they’re most interested. Readings for the course will primarily be from an earth-science textbook but will also include scientific research studies, technical reports, and essays on climate change and society. There will also be four written assignments each semester and in-class quizzes to reinforce the concepts that we learn in class. This seminar will alternate biweekly one-on-one conferences with biweekly small-group workshops on climate data analysis, technical writing, the use of science to inform policy and advocacy, and communicating science.

Natural hazards are earth-system processes that can harm humans and the ecosystems on which we rely; these hazards include a wide variety of phenomena, including volcanoes, earthquakes, wildfires, floods, heat waves, and hurricanes. The terms “natural hazard” and “disaster” are often used interchangeably, and many examples of natural hazards have resulted in disastrous loss of life, socioeconomic disruption, and radical transformation of natural ecosystems. Through improved understanding of these phenomena, however, we can develop strategies to better prepare for and respond to natural hazards and mitigate harm. In this course, we will use case studies of natural-hazard events to explore their underlying earth-system processes—covering topics such as plate tectonics, mass wasting, weather, and climate—along with the social and infrastructure factors that determined their impact on people. We will also discuss related topics—such as probability, risk, and environmental justice—and the direct and indirect ways that different types of natural hazards will be exacerbated by global climate change. Students will attend one weekly lecture and one weekly group conference, where we will discuss scientific papers and explore data on natural hazards processes and case studies. This lecture will also participate in the collaborative interludes and other programs of the Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collaborative on the Environment (SLICE) Mellon course cluster.

Cities are at a crossroads, facing both significant challenges and unparalleled opportunities. From Napoleon's Baron Haussmann's remaking of Paris in the 1800s to climate change and the increasingly severe risk of flooding from hurricanes and sea-level rise, this course explores the evolution and future of urban environments with a focus on sustainability and resilience. We will examine the historical development of cities, including key movements like the City Beautiful movement and Garden Cities, and then explore the impacts of postwar growth, suburban sprawl, and the rise of the automobile on communities and the natural world. The course delves into the contributions of modern architects, such as Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, and examines the historic battle between Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses, which epitomizes the conflict between community-driven urbanism and top-down planning. Late 20th-century trends such as New Urbanism and Transit-Oriented Development will also be discussed. Students will analyze how segregation, economic and racial justice, and historic preservation shape urban spaces, with a focus on the environmental justice movement and the equal right to a healthy environment. We will also study the intersection of human settlement and natural systems, including water, wastewater, and solid-waste management, before turning to the pressing issue of climate change and urban resilience. By investigating the increasing severity of climate events and their impacts on infrastructure and communities, students will gain the knowledge and skills needed to contribute to the development of sustainable and resilient cities in a rapidly changing world.

As we want to engage in individual and collective efforts toward sustainable and climate-change mitigating solutions, this workshop offers an opportunity for students to explore the multiple ways in which “sustainability” can be fostered and developed at an institution like Sarah Lawrence College. Students will work in small groups on a variety of projects and produce research and educational material that can lead to concrete and actionable proposals for the College and our community to consider. Students will determine their own areas of interest and research, from energy and water-usage monitoring to composting solutions, recycling/reusing and consumer sobriety, landscaping choices, pollinators and natural diversity, food growing, natural and human history of the land, and community collaborations, to name a few. As part of their project effort, students will engage with College administrators who are actively working toward sustainable solutions, as well as student, staff, and faculty groups such as the Warren Green vegetable garden, the Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collective on the Environment (SLICE), and the Sustainability Committee. We will also explore the possibility of writing grants in coordination with other actors at the College. This workshop will meet once a week for one hour. It is offered as pass/fail based on attendance and a group project that will mostly be developed during our meeting time. It is open to all students, including first-year students. All skills and areas of expertise are welcome, from environmental science to writing and visual and studio arts—but any interest in issues of sustainability and a strong sense of dedication will suffice!

The way people move through cities is undergoing a transformation across the globe. As urban populations surge, particularly in developing countries, Millennials and Gen Z are gravitating toward central cities with robust public transportation systems. The rise of cycling, micromobility, and the expansion of bike-sharing and electric scooter systems are reshaping urban mobility. Despite plenty of controversy, we cannot ignore Elon Musk's electrification innovations, as well as sharing economy disruptors such as Uber, offering new possibilities for sustainable urban travel. Cities, however, still grapple with severe congestion, the alarming toll of traffic accidents, and escalating carbon emissions—all of which pose serious threats to our planet. We will delve into key topics such as the design and planning implications of urban sprawl versus compact cities, congestion pricing, transit-oriented development, cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, and public transport systems from light to high-speed rail. We will also address urban design for sustainable streets, such as traffic calming measures and plaza development, as well as emerging technologies including drones and aviation technology. Throughout the course, we will focus on examples from the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Asia, analyzing how global transportation trends influence local communities and contribute to the development of sustainable cities. We will also have field trips within the metro region to explore some of these innovations in New York. You will have the opportunity throughout the semester to conduct research on the transportation history and innovation in a global city. The goal of the class is to equip students with the knowledge and skills to foster green, healthy, sustainable transportation systems and cities for the future.

Environmental injustice is both an outcome and a process. As an outcome, environmental injustice is the unequal distribution of environmental burdens (or benefits) in a society. As a process, environmental injustice is the history and institutions that project political, economic, and social inequalities into the environmental sphere. In this course, we will discuss the broad environmental justice literature and connect it with our immediate community: Yonkers, NY. We will first measure the disproportionate environmental burdens in the city’s low-income and minority neighborhoods. Then, we will utilize economics to examine the causal mechanisms of environmental injustice. We will focus on the evolution of the housing market, the changing demographics of Yonkers, the location choice of major pollution sources, political representation and power, exclusionary and expulsive zoning policies, etc. We will draw knowledge from multiple fields—economics, politics, sociology, geography, etc. We will examine the issue using multiple methodologies and assess different policy options for improving environmental and climate justice in Yonkers. We will also examine the policy implications of each environmental injustice issue. For each topic/issue, we will have in-depth discussions based on the readings, followed by in-class collaborative research activities that produce qualitative and quantitative evidence of environmental injustice in Yonkers. To visualize environmental injustice, we will use a geographic information system (GIS) to make maps. You will then be asked to write about the issue in an assignment and discuss potential policy recommendations.

How have films and other modern media shaped our ideas about nature, the planet, and the world around us? What do Technicolor images of the countryside, planetarium voyages to the moon, and experimental films made of moths and decaying nitrate teach us about the nature of cinema? This seminar explores film as a utopian medium for capturing, romanticizing, and recreating nature in an age of rising buildings and disappearing stars. At the same time, we will approach film as a machine that exploits and disrupts natural environments, turning the Earth into raw material to promote nationalist myths, advertise new technologies, and naturalize industrial transitions. Focusing primarily on US and European film, the course has three main themes: film technology and nature, modern imaginaries of outer space, and the country and the city. Alongside weekly screenings, we will read works of film history, media theory, science fiction, manifestos, and an interdisciplinary array of scholars who have influenced recent ideas in film studies about “media environments” and “cine-ecologies.” This seminar will participate in the collaborative interludes and other programs of the Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collaborative on the Environment (SLICE) Mellon course cluster.

In this yearlong seminar, we will begin by examining competing paradigms and approaches to understanding “development” and the “Third World.” We will set the stage by answering the question: What did the world look like 500 years ago? The purpose of this part of the course is to acquaint us with and to analyze the historical origins and evolution of a world political economy of which the "Third World" is an intrinsic component. We will thus study the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the rise of merchant and finance capital, and the colonization of the world by European powers. We will analyze case studies of colonial "development" to understand the evolving meaning of this term. These case studies will help us assess the varied legacies of colonialism apparent in the emergence of new nations through the fitful and uneven process of decolonization that followed. The next part of the course will look at the United Nations and the role that some of its associated institutions have played in the post-World War II global political economy, one marked by persistent and intensifying socioeconomic inequalities as well as frequent outbreaks of political violence across the globe. By examining the development institutions that have emerged and evolved since 1945, we will attempt to unravel the paradoxes of development in different eras. We will deconstruct the measures of development through a thematic exploration of population, resource use, poverty, access to food, the environment, agricultural productivity, and different development strategies adopted by Third World nation-states. We will then examine globalization and its relation to emergent international institutions and their policies; for example, the IMF, World Bank, AIIB, and WTO. We will then turn to contemporary development debates and controversies that increasingly find space in the headlines—widespread land grabbing by sovereign wealth funds, China, and hedge funds; the “global food crisis”; epidemics and public-health challenges; and the perils of climate change. Throughout the course, our investigations of international institutions, transnational corporations, the role of the state, and civil society will provide the backdrop for the final focus of the class: the emergence of regional coalitions for self-reliance, environmental and social justice, and sustainable development. Our analysis of development in practice will draw upon case studies primarily from Africa but also from Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the United States. Conference work will be closely integrated with the themes of the course, with a two-stage substantive research project beginning in the fall semester and completed in the spring. Project presentations will incorporate a range of formats, from traditional papers to multimedia visual productions. Smaller creative projects are also a component of the course, including podcasts, videos, art, music, and other forms. Where possible and feasible, students will be encouraged to do primary research during fall study days and winter and spring breaks. Some experience in the social sciences is desired but not required.

Where does the food we eat come from? Why do some people have enough food to eat and others do not? Are there too many people for the world to feed? Who controls the world’s food? Will global food prices continue their recent rapid rise; and, if so, what will be the consequences? What are the environmental impacts of our food production systems? How do answers to these questions differ by place or by the person asking the question? How have they changed over time? This course will explore the following fundamental issue: the relationship between development and the environment—focusing, in particular, on agriculture and the production and consumption of food. The questions above often hinge on the contentious debate concerning population, natural resources, and the environment. Thus, we will begin by critically assessing the fundamental ideological positions and philosophical paradigms of “modernization,” as well as critical counterpoints that lie at the heart of this debate. Within this context of competing sets of philosophical assumptions concerning the population-resource debate, we will investigate the concept of “poverty” and the making of the Third World, access to food, hunger, grain production and food aid, agricultural productivity (the Green and Gene revolutions), biofuels, the role of transnational corporations (TNCs), the international division of labor, migration, globalization and global commodity chains, and the different strategies adopted by nation-states to “‘develop” natural resources and agricultural production. Through a historical investigation of environmental change and the biogeography of plant domestication and dispersal, we will look at the creation of indigenous, subsistence, peasant, plantation, collective, and commercial forms of agriculture. We will analyze the physical environment and ecology that help shape but rarely determine the organization of resource use and agriculture. Rather, through the dialectical rise of various political-economic systems such as feudalism, slavery, mercantilism, colonialism, capitalism, and socialism, we will study how humans have transformed the world’s environments. We will follow with studies of specific issues: technological change in food production; commercialization and industrialization of agriculture and the decline of the family farm; food and public health, culture, and family; land grabbing and food security; the role of markets and transnational corporations in transforming the environment; and the global environmental changes stemming from modern agriculture, dams, deforestation, grassland destruction, desertification, biodiversity loss, and the interrelationship with climate change. Case studies of particular regions and issues will be drawn from Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the United States. The final part of the course examines the restructuring of the global economy and its relation to emergent international laws and institutions regulating trade, the environment, agriculture, resource-extraction treaties, the changing role of the state, and competing conceptualizations of territoriality and control. We will end with discussions of emergent local, regional, and transnational coalitions for food self-reliance and food sovereignty, alternative and community-supported agriculture, community-based resource-management systems, sustainable development, and grassroots movements for social and environmental justice. Films, multimedia materials, and distinguished-guest lectures will be interspersed throughout the course. One farm/factory field trip is possible if funding/timing permits. The lecture participants may also take a leading role in a campus-wide event on “the climate crisis, food, and hunger,” tentatively planned for spring. Please mark your calendars when the dates are announced, as attendance for all of the above is required. Attendance and participation are also required at special guest lectures and film viewings in the Social Science Colloquium Series approximately once per month. The Web Board is an important part of the course. Regular required postings of short essays will be made here, as well as follow-up commentaries with your colleagues. There will be occasional short, in-class essays during the semester and a final exam at the end. Group conferences will focus on in-depth analysis of certain course topics and will include short prepared papers for debates, the debates themselves, and small-group discussions. You will prepare a poster project on a topic of your choice, related to the course, which will be presented at the end of the semester in group conference, as well as in a potential public session.

Why this course and speaker series/community conversations now? The rise of the New Right is a critically important phenomenon of our time, shaping politics, policies, practices, and daily life for everyone. The insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is only one egregious expression of long-term ideas and actions by a newly emboldened collective of right-wing ideologues. The violent challenges to the realities of a racially and ethnically diverse America is not a surprise. Nor is the normalization of White Power politics and ideas within mainstream politics and parties. The varied nature of the New Right’s participants—their ideologies, grievances, and goals—requires deep analysis of their historical roots, as well as their contemporary manifestations. The wide range of platforms and spaces for communicating hate, lies, and calls for violence against perceived enemies require their own responses, including the creation of platforms and spaces that offer analysis and alternatives. Seriously engaging the New Right, attempting to offer explanations for its rise, is key to challenging the authoritarian drift in our current political moment and its uncertain evolution and future. To do so requires our attention. It also requires a transdisciplinary approach, something inherent to our College and to geography as a discipline, be it political, economic, cultural, social, urban, historical, or environmental geography. The goal of this seminar, one that is accompanied by a planned facilitated speaker series and community conversations, is to build on work in geography and beyond and engage a wide array of thinkers from diverse disciplines and backgrounds, institutions, and organizations. In addition to teaching the course itself, my hope is that it can be a vehicle to engage our broader communities—at the College and in our region, as well as by reaching out to our widely dispersed, multigenerational alumni. Pairing the course with a subset of facilitated/moderated speaker series, live-streamed in collaboration with our Alumni Office, offers the chance to bring these classroom conversations and contemporary and pressing course topics, grounded in diverse readings and student engagement, to a much wider audience and multiple communities. In this class, we will seek to understand the origins and rise of the New Right in the United States and elsewhere as it has taken shape in the latter half of the 20th century to the present. We will seek to identify the origins of the New Right and what defines it, explore the varied geographies of the movement and its numerous strands, and identify the constituents of the contemporary right coalition. In addition, we will explore the actors and institutions that have played a role in the expansion of the New Right (e.g., courts, state and local governments, Tea Party, conservative think tanks, lawyers, media platforms, evangelical Christians, militias) and the issues that motivate the movement (e.g., anticommunism, immigration, environment, white supremacy/nationalism, voter suppression, neoliberal economic policies, antiglobalization, free speech). This is a reading-intensive, discussion-oriented, open, large seminar in which we will survey a broad sweep of the recent literature on the New Right. While the class focuses most specifically on the US context, conference papers based on international/comparative case studies are welcome. Students will be required to attend all associated talk and film viewings; write weekly essays and engage colleagues in conversation online the night before seminar; and write two short research papers that link the themes of the class with their own interests, creative products, research agenda, and/or political engagement. Students will also do two associated creative projects/expressions. Transdisciplinary collaborative activities across the College and community are encouraged. Film, performance, written commentary, podcasts, workshops, and other forms of action can provide additional outlets for student creative projects and engagement.

As climate change has emerged as a fixture in our news cycle, week after week, our society has grown increasingly aware of the various impacts that humans have had on the environment—to say nothing of the extent to which environmental transformation has been fundamentally reshaping human experience. As obvious as these interactions might seem to us today, it was only in recent decades—inspired by the new environmentalism of the ’60s and ’70s—that historians and social scientists began to explore how to narrate the past by focusing primarily on human beings’ complex, ever-evolving relationship with the nonhuman world. This course will provide a broad introduction into this new “environmental history,” adopting a global lens through which to excavate the historical relationship between the human and nonhuman worlds. Along the way, we will explore a number of approaches to three broad themes: the effects (both intended and unintended) of human societies on the environment; the role of nonhuman “nature” in the unfolding of human history; and the evolution of ideas (religious, cultural, intellectual) about nature and the environment. Though we will trace these themes fairly far back into history, the course will focus most of its attention on the so-called “Anthropocene” era—the period since the Industrial Revolution in Europe—which witnessed the rapid globalization of capitalist modernity and the advent of expansive overseas colonial empires. This seminar will participate in the collaborative interludes and other programs of the Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collaborative on the Environment (SLICE) Mellon course cluster.

This course examines, through medieval texts and manuscripts, the complex imagination of animals and animality in the Middle Ages. Critical theories of the Animal Turn seek to reevaluate the relationship between animals and human beings, envisioning the history of the animal as not only environmental but also intellectual, cultural, technological, economic, and as a history of marginalization. Integrating our interdisciplinary study of medieval culture with these theories, we will consider textual and visual materials that recognize the essential, varied, and often surprising roles that animals play and that question an anthropocentric vision that has often otherized animals and animality. Online archives and other digital resources will help us navigate portrayals of animals found in bestiaries, romance narratives, and saints’ lives. In addition, students will learn about the critical importance of animal studies to current environmental justice issues. This course will participate in the Spring 2025 Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collaborative on the Environment (SLICE) Mellon course cluster, with a focus on environmental and climate justice and an involvement with local organizations. The semester will include two interludes during which students will engage in collaborative projects across disciplines and in partnership with students from Bronx Community College. Students will have the opportunity to develop field-based conference projects.

Variance, correlation coefficient, regression analysis, statistical significance, and margin of error—you’ve heard these terms and other statistical phrases bantered about before, and you’ve seen them interspersed in news reports and research articles. But what do they mean? How are they used? And why are they so important? Serving as an introduction to the concepts, techniques, and reasoning central to the understanding of data, this lecture course focuses on the fundamental methods of statistical analysis used to gain insight into diverse areas of human interest. The use, misuse, and abuse of statistics will be the central focus of the course; and specific topics of exploration will be drawn from experimental design theory, sampling theory, data analysis, and statistical inference. Applications will be considered in current events, business, psychology, politics, medicine, and many other areas of the natural and social sciences. Statistical (spreadsheet) software will be introduced and used extensively in this course, but no prior experience with the technology is assumed. Group conferences, conducted in workshop mode, will serve to reinforce student understanding of the course material. This lecture is recommended for anybody wishing to be a better-informed consumer of data and strongly recommended for those planning to pursue advanced undergraduate or graduate research in the natural sciences or social sciences. Enrolled students are expected to have an understanding of basic high-school algebra and plane coordinate geometry.

For the first time in history, it is not only conceivable but likely that human action will result in the extinction of our species. We transformed our planet from remarkably resilient to deeply vulnerable in a flash, whether time is measured geologically or in terms of cultural evolution. So, we struggle to determine how to cope and what to do about our newly vulnerable world. We face, especially in climate change, an impending global catastrophe beyond the ethical imaginations of all but the most recent generations. Many of the very same forces (especially capitalism and the energy-intensive technology and civilization it spreads on a global scale) that produce planetary peril tend—either directly and intentionally or simply by their further effects—to make it difficult to become more intentional about planetary stewardship at the pace and on the scale required. But just as human activity rendered our world vulnerable, only concerted human action can save it. This means that climate change and other crises of the Anthropocene can only be tamed politically; i.e., through collective action on a global scale of a kind without precedent in human history. Global political action, in turn, requires not-yet-developed ethical resources and political capacities if it is to succeed in saving our planet in ways that avoid unjust and inhumane distributions of costs and suffering. Developing the normative and imaginative resources to grasp the enormity of the advancing climate and environmental crises is an essential first step in creating the capacity for collective action required to respond. While traditional concerns with topics like distributive justice offer partial guidance as we notice, for instance, the overlap between environmental and racial injustice domestically as well as globally, many of the normative issues raised by our rapidly advancing, world-altering powers are simply unprecedented. To develop the normative resources required to navigate this new world, we need simultaneously to seek new orienting ideas while also examining Western, non-Western/indigenous, and contemporary conceptions of social justice, responsibility, relatedness, and ethics anew. Which, if any, can be adapted to incorporate global, intergenerational, and interspecies obligations? Do revisions in received understandings of risk and agency necessitate corollary changes in ideas like democracy, power, responsibility, privacy, and our relation to the natural and built worlds? To address these issues, this course divides into three main units, in turn: 1) We will examine the novel forces at work in the Anthropocene and the unprecedented questions of justice and ethics that they raise (e.g., Is it morally permissible to have a child in a world that may become rapidly uninhabitable? Should we engage in ubiquitous surveillance as the capacity for, perhaps, inadvertent mass destruction becomes more readily available to ordinary persons?). 2) We will also examine the tradition of Western philosophy to survey the resources it contains or lacks for answering these kinds of novel questions. 3) In light of the limited resources that this tradition contains, we will turn to other sources—briefly surveying recent work on non-Western traditions (especially indigenous cultures) and concentrating on contemporary political philosophy and ethics. Students should emerge with a sharper understanding of the political and ethical dimensions of the climate crisis and other environmental issues and the normative resources available to them in determining how to respond personally and politically. This course will fully participate in the spring 2025 Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collaborative on the Environment (SLICE) Mellon course cluster.

For the first time in history, it is not only conceivable but likely that human action will result in the extinction of our species. We transformed our planet from remarkably resilient to deeply vulnerable in a flash, whether time is measured geologically or in terms of cultural evolution. So, we struggle to determine how to cope and what to do about our newly vulnerable world. We face, especially in climate change, an impending global catastrophe beyond the ethical imaginations of all but the most recent generations. Many of the very same forces (especially capitalism and the energy-intensive technology and civilization it spreads on a global scale) that produce planetary peril tend—either directly and intentionally or simply by their further effects—to make it difficult to become more intentional about planetary stewardship at the pace and on the scale required. But just as human activity rendered our world vulnerable, only concerted human action can save it. This means that climate change and other crises of the Anthropocene can only be tamed politically; i.e., through collective action on a global scale of a kind without precedent in human history. Global political action, in turn, requires not-yet-developed ethical resources and political capacities if it is to succeed in saving our planet in ways that avoid unjust and inhumane distributions of costs and suffering. Developing the normative and imaginative resources to grasp the enormity of the advancing climate and environmental crises is an essential first step in creating the capacity for collective action required to respond. While traditional concerns with topics like distributive justice offer partial guidance as we notice, for instance, the overlap between environmental and racial injustice domestically as well as globally, many of the normative issues raised by our rapidly advancing, world-altering powers are simply unprecedented. To develop the normative resources required to navigate this new world, we need simultaneously to seek new orienting ideas while also examining Western, non-Western/indigenous, and contemporary conceptions of social justice, responsibility, relatedness, and ethics anew. Which, if any, can be adapted to incorporate global, intergenerational, and interspecies obligations? Do revisions in received understandings of risk and agency necessitate corollary changes in ideas like democracy, power, responsibility, privacy, and our relation to the natural and built worlds? To address these issues, this course divides into three main units, in turn: 1) We will examine the novel forces at work in the Anthropocene and the unprecedented questions of justice and ethics that they raise (e.g., Is it morally permissible to have a child in a world that may become rapidly uninhabitable? Should we engage in ubiquitous surveillance as the capacity for, perhaps, inadvertent mass destruction becomes more readily available to ordinary persons?). 2) We will also examine the tradition of Western philosophy to survey the resources it contains or lacks for answering these kinds of novel questions. 3) In light of the limited resources that this tradition contains, we will turn to other sources—briefly surveying recent work on non-Western traditions (especially indigenous cultures) and concentrating on contemporary political philosophy and ethics. Students should emerge with a sharper understanding of the political and ethical dimensions of the climate crisis and other environmental issues and the normative resources available to them in determining how to respond personally and politically. This course will fully participate in the spring 2025 Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collaborative on the Environment (SLICE) Mellon course cluster.

In North American countries, 83.6 percent of residents live in cities as of 2020, and 56 percent of the world’s population is urban. Traditional environmental movements focus on the “natural” world, and the built environment tends to be undertheorized and perhaps underanalyzed. Yet, urban spaces are also sites of resistance, as residents create community gardens from vacant lots, paint public-housing project exterior walls, and lobby for city government support of the built environment. This course explores paths toward humanistic urban revitalization and civic engagement through community partnership. We will read in three main domains: knowledge of local and global urban environments; physical, mental, and social/community health; and theory and philosophies of urban environments. The relationship between urban sustainability and social dynamics, such as ethical decision-making and sociopolitical power relations (Sze, 2020), seem to lead to a particular set of public-private solutions. These are implemented from the top downward, without input from stakeholders and residents, with serious implications for resident health. In turn, health is strongly affected by the urban physical environment, infrastructure, pollution, population density, and the concomitant social environment (Galea and Vlahov, 2005). And as development occurs, long-time residents of neighborhoods are being displaced. How can we ensure that the health and welfare of all denizens are developed as well as purported positive economic change? The community-partnership/service-learning component is an important part of this class. For one morning or afternoon per week, students will work in local community agencies to promote health-adaptive, person-environment interactions within our community.

This community partnership course will focus on the health of humans living within physical, social, and psychological urban spaces. We will use a constructivist, multidisciplinary, multilevel lens to examine the interrelationship between humans and the natural and built environment, to explore the impact of social group (ethnic, racial, sexuality/gender) membership on person/environment interactions, and to explore an overview of theoretical and research issues in the psychological study of health and illness across the lifespan. We will examine theoretical perspectives in the psychology of health, health cognition, illness prevention, stress, and coping with illness; and we will highlight research, methods, and applied issues. This class is appropriate for those interested in a variety of health careers or anyone interested in city life. The community-partnership/service-learning component is an important part of this class. We will work with local agencies to promote health-adaptive, person-environment interactions within our community.

Why do certain social groups have higher rates of morbidity and mortality than others? How are these differences driven by our social environments, as well as by social practices within health and medicine? These are some of the many questions addressed by sociologists of medicine. Unlike the physical sciences, which primarily study the physiological causes and effects of illness, sociology addresses health as a practice that is: 1) shaped by social processes; and 2) constructs differences between social groups. This yearlong lecture will overview major themes within the sociology of health and medicine, including (among others) the fundamental causes of disease, medicalization, contested illnesses and experiences of illness, and health social movements. Our lecture will ground these concepts through the lens of disability studies to better understand how health and medicine create social differences and shape lived, embodied experiences. During these conversations, we will also attend to the intersection of disability with other social categories, such as sex/gender, race, and class. For conference, students will choose a theoretical concept to guide their investigation into a specific empirical context. For example, students may choose to use Talcott Parsons’ concept of the “sick role” to better understand the varying perceptions of what it means to contract COVID-19 as a vaccinated or unvaccinated person.